Constructing a new world. Featuring commentary and reviews on games and their systems.

So I'm sitting here in MSPaint, drawing out some basic UIs which might be good for a default. I'm currently working on the character page, and I don't know what sort of slots I would need for this game.

After thinking it out, and coming up with a short list, it occurred to me that the whole paperdoll slot system should be entirely tossed out the window. I could conceivably come up with enough item types that the character equipment sheet would be fullscreen at 1600x1050 resolution. Head, Eyes, Midface, Mouth, Neck, Shoulders, Chest, Abdomen, Upper Arm (left and right), Elbow (left and right), Forearms (left and right), Wrists, Hands, Waist, Upper Legs, Knee (left and right), Shin (left and right), Feet, Back, and then the accessories such as rings for your fingers, necklaces, earrings, headbands...

You've also got weapons which must be sheathed, backpacks for inventory, what you hold in your hands, and so on.

That's not to mention the fact that I'd like to have a system where you can wear TWO shirts if you want to. In fact, I'd like the option to do like Joey in that one Friends episode where he puts on every single article of clothing Chandler owns. There would be large combat penalties to doing such a thing, but it should still be an option.

Also is the fact that I'd like to tie the player's inventory to their gear on RP servers and the like.

You can see that the paperdoll system quickly becomes incredibly cumbersome and hard to manage. So let's chuck it out the window.

I think it would be best to just have the player's equipment be a large bag like current game inventories are. Anything you put in the bag goes on your character. Each piece of equipment would have a specific tag which indicates what kind of equipment it is. A helmet, gloves, boots, etc. If you put on extra pieces of an equipment you are already wearing, you take a penalty. These penalties could vary from piece to piece, armor type to armor type, and even based on specific combinations. Plate wearers wouldn't be able to put on multiple pieces of the same type of plate armor unless one set was much larger than the layer underneath, and even then it would be like walking around with a wagonload of bricks on your shoulders. Cloth wearers would be able to stack multiple pieces on top of each other with little weight restriction, though there would be other penalties such as movement restrictions. Putting plate on top of mail might cause the mail armor to chafe the skin a bit and cause pain if the player doesn't have enough Constitution.

A system like this would also be flexible enough that if new armor slot pieces needed to be invented, say nipples for example (though I'm fairly sure I would never have a need or desire to implement that D: ), then it could easily be done in the future.